Isec Batir shook his head in confusion with a raised eyebrow. “My prince, I don’t understand?”
Wesley continued, coming up with his orders on the spot as he spoke. “You will announce yourself to all the patrons there. Your full name and your position. I want everyone in the brothel knowing exactly who you are.”
“My prince, I-”
“Do not interrupt me, captain.”
The look on Isec’s face became one of embarrassment and distress.
“After that, you will go to every other brothel in Scourge Alley and repeat, until you have found me three of the most beautiful black-haired whores. One, two, three,” Wesley said, putting a finger up with each consecutive number. “And then you will bring them to me, here in my quarters where I can make use of them, and where I shall remain, as father requested.”
“My prince, you can’t ask me to do that.”
“Oh, but I can,” Wesley sneered. “You said it yourself- the king asked you to bring me anything I wanted. To make sure that all my needs are met, did he not? And, well, this is but one of my needs.”
“Alright,” Isec said reluctantly. “I’ll have my men-”
“No,” Wesley snapped. “You will do this for me, not your men.”
Isec’s eyes were begging for Wesley to recant his request. He stood there for a moment, in shock, in silence. Wesley just stared straight back at the captain.
“Or will I have to tell my father of your failure to obey my simple orders upon his return?”
Isec Batir’s mind was clearly racing. His eyes twitched and his skin glistened with sweat.
I win.
“Now, Isec,” Wesley ordered.
Isec scratched his eyebrow before giving a half-nod, finally accepting the task he had been given. A task that would surely humiliate the man.
A man of such high, chivalrous principle, seeking prostitutes along the city’s most despicable thoroughfare! The very idea of it made Wesley cackle as he watched the captain leave.
As he re-entered his room, Wesley picked up his cup that he had hit across the room and drank another serving of wine.
Wesley glared at Ciana, fixating on her smooth curls and soft, pale skin. His gaze, which he had attempted to control on their wedding night, once again rediscovered the alluring curves of her body.
“Wife,” Wesley said. “Get up.”
Ciana tilted her head towards Wesley with a questionable stare, before looking away, ignoring his order.
“Now,” Wesley barked.
“Fuck off, Wesley,” Ciana said, closing her eyes and resting her arms behind her head as she stretched out over the couch.
Wesley finished the last drops of wine, feeling an inner thrill at the realisation that with his father gone, he may be able to get away with more than he normally would.
And what better way to assert his lust for dominance than by bestowing it on his nasty wife?
The wine made his head spin but did little to dull his senses or desires. In fact, it almost seemed to exacerbate his eagerness to follow through with what he was craving.
Wesley grabbed Ciana by the arm and pulled her up forcefully from the couch. She dropped to the floor from the sudden yank, hitting it hard with a thud.
“Ouch, what the fuck are you doing?” Ciana yelled, rubbing the back of her head which had struck against the floor.
Wesley ignored her question. With Ciana fallen on the floor, he stomped on Ciana’s face with the heel of his foot, so hard that he swore it had knocked her out for a moment.
Wesley heard Ciana take in a sharp breath of air as blood seeped from the nostrils of her broken nose. Her skin began to immediately swell and turn blue.
The stomp had been so powerful that Ciana just lay there, half-struggling to get up in a confused daze.
His heart was racing with… excitement?
“Wha-…” she mumbled, reaching out to the side of the couch to hold on to. “Wesley…”
On her knees, Wesley then struck Ciana in the cheek with his already battered fist. Ciana fell back down, spitting out blood and crying out in pain.
“Things are going to be changing around here,” Wesley said in a cool voice, shaking off his bloodied fist. “We are going to start doing things my way! No more talking to me like a child! No more slander against my family! You answer to me, and me alone.”
Ciana wept, holding her battered face, and struggling to crawl away from Wesley… but with nowhere she could flee to.
Wesley turned away, looking at the assortment of decorations around the room, as if a new filter had been given to his eyes, Wesley began seeing the ornate and ordinary objects in a new, different light.
Wesley smirked at the realisation of the pain he could inflict on not only Ciana, but the whores upon their arrival. No one could stop him, either. Not now.
The thought sent Wesley into an excited craze. For the first time ever, he felt truly powerful. He was in control. His father was gone, Batir was under his control, and Ciana would learn to submit sooner or later.
A silver candlestick. Small sculptures of marble with pointed ends. A brass jug. He could beat them. He could strike them. He could choke them. He could stick them.
Wesley stood grinning like a child receiving a present.
Ciana cried out for help, and then for mercy upon seeing the mad glaze in Wesley’s eyes.
Isec Batir would return to the Wesley’s quarters to find Ciana black-eyed, teary faced, with a broken, bleeding nose and split lip.
Wesley could then make use of the whores, with his wife, or just in front of her to shame her. Then he’d beat them.
That was what his dark desires wanted.
Maybe I could make Isec watch, too! Wesley’s mind raced ahead with so many invigorating and intoxicating ideas.
He felt himself becoming aroused.
Wesley took the silver candlestick and approached Ciana slowly like a predator about to launch an attack on its prey. Ciana had somehow crawled all the way to the door and was trying to reach for the doorknob.
Wesley took her by the ankle with his free hand, dragging her away. She dug her nails into the wooden floor with a horrific screech to try and stop him. They simply snapped and broke.
Wesley cackled with glee. “I can’t believe I felt sorry for you, at one point,” he said to Ciana.
Ciana shook her head as she lay on her back on the floor, holding her bloodied hands out over her malforming, swollen face in a fruitless effort to defend herself.
“Please… don’t,” Ciana begged.
“No one will be laughing at me anymore. No one will be putting me down any longer,” Wesley said, standing over the top of his wife, brandishing the silver candlestick before striking her with it.
“Stop! Please… stop!”
He struck her several times with the candlestick until it broke in two.
Wesley huffed, suddenly out of breath from exerting himself. “It will be some time before Ser Isec Batir returns with my whores,” the prince said in a blank tone.
Ciana had blacked out, sprawled across the floor.
“What say you and I have some fun until then? I wouldn’t want my dear wife missing out, after all.”
Chapter 33 - The Butcher
Tomas was stirred from his sleep by cold, calloused hands on his ankles. He was dragged out of bed and onto the icy floor so suddenly that it shocked him into a state of panic.
A huge, stocky, black silhouette stood over him like a menacing phantom. The figure still had a forceful grip on Tomas’s ankles, so hard that it hurt.
“Let go of me!” Tomas shouted. Being only seven years of age, his voice had not yet developed into a man’s. As such, his frantic shouts did little to threaten the intruder.
The silhouetted man reeked of beer and dragged Tomas out of his bedroom by the leg. Tomas flailed about, trying to grab onto something. His house was nearly in complete darkness; only a sliver of moonlight shone through the gaps of the broken shutters over the win
dows.
The intruder stomped as loud as a giant as he pulled Tomas to the front door against his will. His face was still shrouded in shadow. Tomas could make out no discernible features from the fear and the darkness.
He screamed, kicked and cried.
I’m going to die! I’m going to die!
“Please! Father! Someone help me!” Tomas begged.
Where was father? He should be asleep, too, and their house was small. Tomas was sure his father must have heard the commotion.
The man grumbled as he swung the door to the house open. The moonlight from outside suddenly lit him up. Tomas was shocked to see that the man who had dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night was no stranger at all.
It was his father.
“Father, stop!” Tomas said upon realising who it was.
The middle-aged man was unshaven, unkempt, and with bags under his eyes. He was wearing a bloodied butcher’s apron and leather gloves.
The man did not stop dragging Tomas through the moist dirt and icy snow beneath his feet. He didn’t even bother to look Tomas in the face.
“Why are you doing this?! Stop it!” Tomas could only cry.
After dragging him out the door a few feet, Tomas’s father released the painful grip from his ankles. Tomas sprung up, brushing off the muck that had accumulated on his clothes and wiping his tears.
They stood alone in the dead street of Brittlepeak.
All the lights in the surrounding houses were out. The only noise outside with Tomas and his father were the cooing of owls, the babbling of the mountain river flowing through town, and the howl of the bone-chilling wind.
Tomas’s father, like some sort of hellish fiend, lent down and pointed a dirty finger in Tomas’s face. “It’s time I taught you a lesson on being a man,” he said menacingly.
His words were slurred. His breath stank of drink. His eyes had a distinct chill to them.
The threat sent a shiver down Tomas’s spine, or perhaps it was the rush of mountain wind around him in the dark of the night.
Tomas was still young, a boy, and could not work out what to say to get his father to stop. He stood there, completely frozen with fear, arms crossed.
“Come here, boy,” his father grumbled like some fiend. The man led him around the back of their house… back towards the area where Tomas never went.
The back of the house gave him nightmares. It terrified him so deeply that he began to shake.
“Quit your shaking! Time to man up, boy.”
Tomas’s father directed him into the small makeshift barn out back, lit only by torch and moonlight. Long shadows snaked around them like constricting demons. He had never gone inside.
The smell was what hit him first- the putrid stench of rotting flesh and animal blood. It made Tomas wretch so violently that he almost threw up.
“Get inside,” Tomas’s father ordered, shutting the rickety door behind them, before bolting it.
Tomas covered his face, attempting to escape the foul odours of his surroundings. Before them, two white lambs stood in the dark corner of the barn, wide-eyed and looking about as scared as Tomas felt.
The ground was covered with hay, dirt, and pools of blood, some thick and sticky, others fresher. Empty bottles of drink were strewn across the place.
The barn was dark, but Tomas caught a glimpse of something to the side. Hanging by metal hooks from the ceiling were the bodies of the lambs that Tomas’s father had already slaughtered.
Tomas instantly averted his gaze, feeling his heart jump into his throat. The hung there, dead, helpless, like the swinging bodies of the gallows.
The sound of the metal screeching as the lambs swayed was nightmarish.
Blood was still dripping from their slit throats and open abdomens.
Tomas’s father nudged him in the side with his dirty, gloved hands. “It’s your turn now, boy.”
He presented his cleaver to the boy in an outstretched hand. It was smeared with blood and rusted by the handle.
Tomas was utterly frozen. He eyed the two lambs hiding in the corner, seeing their fear, and feeling their panic. They stared back at him, huddled together and unblinking as if suspecting what was going to happen.
Tomas shook his head vehemently. “No.”
Tomas’s father eyed the boy, but Tomas did not look away from the helpless little animals before him.
“The fuck did you just say, boy?”
“I won’t do it.”
He nudged him harder, forcefully opening his small fingers to place the cleaver in his hand.
The lambs began to squeal upon seeing the weapon that had killed their kin. It was the most sickening noise Tomas had ever heard. He burst out crying.
“You will do it, or so help you!”
Tomas was paralysed between fighting or fleeing.
“DO IT! Kill them! They are nothing!”
Tomas wept, begging his father to stop.
The lambs screamed.
“Be a fucking man!”
Tomas wrapped his fingers around the handle of the cleaver, pulling it from his father’s grip and sinking it deep into the man’s thigh in one swift motion.
The blade sliced a clean gash into his father’s flesh, causing him to stagger and cry out.
Tomas did not waste a second. He ran for the barn door with all the speed he could muster.
“You son of a whore! Get back here!” his father screamed, ripping the cleaver out from his leg and lurching forwards.
Tomas fled around to the front of their house with the winds still screaming around him. The night was so dark, and snow was gusting all about to add to the confusing panic.
He heard the barn door smash open as his father limped after him with snarling teeth and violent threats.
Tomas ran down the path towards town, hoping someone would be awake to help. He cried for aid, but the gusting wind and time of night made it hard to be sufficiently loud enough to wake anyone.
Most of the townspeople in the small village were deep asleep, and their houses so spread out that it would be difficult to even catch his pleas for aid if they were awake.
Yet, Tomas still fled.
The stomping from behind grew louder as Tomas’s father caught up with him despite the heinous wound. He tackled the boy around his midsection, sending them both tumbling forwards.
Tomas tried fighting his father off, smacking, scratching, and punching with no success. His father rolled on top and placed his grizzly hands around the boy’s neck.
Tomas’s throat instantly tightened as the calloused fingers squeezed. The dark of the night forbade Tomas from getting a proper look at his father’s face as he choked his son. He only saw the whites of his wide, monstrous eyes.
Tomas gasped for air, hitting his father as hard as he could but losing strength by the second as his body screamed for a breath.
Kicking and struggling only served to make his father push more weight down upon him.
A finger to the eye? Tomas’s father smacked the smaller arm away with ease. Nothing was going to stop him.
Everything started to spin.
“Hey!” a voice shouted from down the path.
Tomas’s father promptly released his grip upon realising someone had seen them.
Tomas coughed and spat as he inhaled. He turned to see a silhouette standing several metres down the road of a person was clearly with a helmet atop their head. The dark of the night hid any discernible features, however.
“Get off him,” the person ordered directly in a gruff voice, but remaining at a distance.
Tomas’s father looked back down at Tomas, as if weighing his options. Would he dare to try to kill his son in plain view of a witness?
Tomas continued coughing as he wriggled out from underneath his father and staggered towards to the stranger.
His father got up, wiping his nose, and coldly staring back, before returning to the house without uttering a single word, like a defeated animal.
“Th…thank you,” Tomas huffed, grateful to be free from his father’s clutches.
That was the closest he had ever gotten to nearly killing Tomas, and he knew it.
Tomas looked up at the figure standing over him. His teary eyes adjusted to the dark, and eventually he made out the facial features.
It was Rilan, wearing his father’s old helmet. He was tall for his age; Tomas’s father must have assumed it was a grown man watching them.
Rilan knelt down and patted Tomas on the back, wanting to offer help but not knowing what else to say or do in such a circumstance.
“Rilan? How… how did you…?” Tomas began. He was amazed that Rilan had been there to save him, let alone that his father was scared off by him.
“I heard screaming,” Rilan said. “Grabbed my pa’s helmet and came looking.”
Tomas, through his pumping heartbeat, was impressed at Rilan’s bravery. Wearing his father’s helmet and standing in the shadows down the street had somehow worked. It had scared off his father. The man was a coward; he would never do anything incriminating in front of anyone in Brittlepeak, lest it ruin him.
“I…I can’t believe it worked.”
“Me too, Tommy. Got my nerves all shaken, I did.”
“He… I…” Tomas could only gasp, still finding it hard to calm down.
“You’re alright, Tommy.”
Despite being children, despite being about the same age, Rilan had managed to save him. Tomas was overwhelmed with both fear and relief at the same time.
“He wanted me to kill the lambs,” Tomas uttered, tearing up again as their frightened faces and harrowing screams began to flash back into his mind. “He gave me a cleaver.”
Rilan did not say anything in reply. What could he say? He took Tomas by the arm and helped him back to his family’s house only a short walk from Tomas’s house.
“Let’s get out of this cold.”
“I… I stabbed him,” Tomas said, realising what he had done.
Starfall (The Fables of Chaos Book 1) Page 39